For the first time in the history of college sports, athletes are asking to be represented by a labor union, taking formal steps on Tuesday to begin the process of being recognized as employees, ESPN's "Outside The Lines" has learned.
Ramogi Huma, president of the National College Players Association, filed a petition in Chicago on behalf of football players at Northwestern University, submitting the form at the regional office of the National Labor Relations Board.
Backed by the United Steelworkers union, Huma also filed union cards signed by an undisclosed number of Northwestern players with the NLRB -- the federal statutory body that recognizes groups that seek collective bargaining rights.
"This is about finally giving college athletes a seat at the table," said Huma, a former UCLA linebacker, who created the NCPA as an advocacy group in 2001. "Athletes deserve an equal voice when it comes to their physical, academic and financial protections."
Huma told "Outside The Lines" that the move to unionize players at Northwestern started with quarterback Kain Colter, who reached out to him last spring and asked for help in giving athletes representation in their effort to improve the conditions under which they play NCAA sports. Colter became a leading voice in regular NCPA-organized conference calls among players from around the country.
"The action we're taking isn't because of any mistreatment by Northwestern," Colter said. "We love Northwestern. The school is just playing by the rules of their governing body, the NCAA. We're interested in trying to help all players -- at USC, Stanford, Oklahoma State, everywhere. It's about protecting them and future generations to come.
"Right now the NCAA is like a dictatorship. No one represents us in negotiations. The only way things are going to change is if players have a union."
The NFLPA's Board of Player Representatives passed a resolution supporting the players' union movement, Pro Football Talk has reported: "Resolved, that the NFLPA pledges its support to the National Collegiate Players Association (NCPA) and its pursuit of basic rights and protections for future NFLPA members."
Full article at ESPN.com
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Originally Posted by steelerfan
I'd love to see one of these guys have to go to school like the rest of us did.
I also take Huma's non-committal statement about salaries to mean that would be a later goal of the union. If football players "get paid," do you do that for all sports? What does Title IX have to say about all/any of this? Will taxpayers have to subsidize athletic departments at a higher clip? That is a completely unsustainable model, even more so than exists now. This would only speed up the process of Division I becoming solely the power conferences, with some of those smaller schools moving down a level, and the elimination of many non-revenue generating sports.
's brief. Solid and they apparently have SCOTUS and prior NLRB rulings directly on point in a university setting. This one could be going all the way up to SCOTUS. I think the biggest problem with the ruling is that you have to be an "employee" before you can unionize and/or attempt to unionize. These kids aren't paid (which is generally the fundamental element to employment) so its a stretch to say the scholarship is their salary.
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